The only consideration here that would violate what would be the child's dignity is putting anything above harm, as there is nothing to "ameliorate" for the child. — schopenhauer1

Who cares? There are people in the room. Similar to how you didn't care about violating the lifeguard's dignity because there is a person in the water. But we're just going around in circles now, the main disagreement is this:

I do. If the lifeguard can prevent all harm for a future person — schopenhauer1

Your premise that if all of the suffering can be prevented then that somehow makes it "special" in comparison to partial suffering prevention.

Does the individual count that you are harming? — schopenhauer1

Of course.

I am saying, while the aggregate could matter due to the constraints of being alive with interests, no such thing is the case for considering a future child who is not born. — schopenhauer1

This is just bizarre to me. Who cares if the child doesn't have interests? The lifeguard didn't have an interest in saving anyone either (because he was sleeping). But you didn't care. Once he woke up, he probably would, but that's not an argument for the same reason that "Once the child is born he probably would like life" is not an argument.

But for some reason, the child not existing makes his interests "special" and impositions on him worse than on anyone else.

This is just bizarre to me. Who cares if the child doesn't have interests? The lifeguard didn't have an interest in saving anyone either (because he was sleeping). But you didn't care. Once he woke up, he probably would, but that's not an argument for the same reason that "Once the child is born he probably would like life" is not an argument.

But for some reason, the child not existing makes his interests "special" and impositions on him worse than on anyone else. — khaled

I'm sorry you feel that way. Don't know what to say. However, recruiting someone into the game with suffering so that I can help the people already in the game is a no go. The lifeguard is already in the game. Sleep is not being not born.

The problem I find here is that these analogies often create a false narrative. They are useful to a point, and then they don't become illustrative but obfuscating. You have somehow narrowed a lot of arguments I've made into a lifeguard that is woken up. A clever trick, but it's like summing up someone's whole life story in a one liner joke.

Before I was born, did I have a right not to be born?

Before I was born, did I have a right not to be born? — Srap Tasmaner

There was no you, but could someone have prevented harm by not having what could have been you? Would you have been born to be deprived of anything "good"?

You're not going to answer the question?

There was no you with a right to not be born prior to your birth. Once you are born, then a violation has occurred as unnecessary harm could have been prevented.

A violation of what?

The principle to not cause unnecessary harm on someone else's behalf.

I'm sorry, the English there seems a little garbled.

Do you mean something like, "Don't hurt people if you don't have to" -- where "have to" is a pretty high bar to clear -- or maybe just "Don't hurt people if you can avoid it"?

I guess the latter.

This is about the parents then, right? When you say, "a violation has occurred", you mean someone has violated this principle. They hurt someone when they could have avoided hurting them; they could just choose not to be parents.

To be clear though, having a child is not generally a malicious act. The parents-to-be don't intend to hurt anyone by having a child, certainly not their offspring-to-be. There may be horrifying exceptions, but generally not, right? They may even think they're doing something good, and in particular doing something good for the future offspring.

Of course people can do evil believing they're doing good, no question. On your view, people who have children and think it's a good or at least an unobjectionable thing to do fall into this category, yes?

The principle, then, will not excuse someone for performing a harmful act they didn't have to just because they didn't intend the harm that results, right? It's not about your intentions, but about consequences. Is that right?

It's not about your intentions, but about consequences. — Srap Tasmaner

Maybe I shouldn't have made this sound like such a sharp dichotomy.

We can all agree on "Don't be cruel" -- don't deliberately hurt people when you know exactly what you're doing, what the results will be, and you don't have to -- but we'd probably also all agree an even better rule would be "Don't be cruel or callous": we want people to pay attention, to be aware of how their actions affect others. Even if you lack the specific intention of hurting someone, being indifferent to whether you're hurting them is also pretty bad. We have general expectations, that you will know the sorts of things most people know, that you will recognize when you're hurting someone.

That's not purely about your intentions or purely about the consequences of your actions, so there's some middle ground available, and where I'd figure a lot of us land.

That's not purely about your intentions or purely about the consequences of your actions, so there's some middle ground available, and where I'd figure a lot of us land. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes agreed.

However, recruiting someone into the game with suffering so that I can help the people already in the game is a no go. — schopenhauer1

But harming the people in the game for the sake of other people in the game is fine?

You have somehow narrowed a lot of arguments I've made into a lifeguard that is woken up. — schopenhauer1

Because I needed to keep reestablishing that you find it fine to harm people for the sake of other people in the game, to show that you need an extra premise to take having children off the spectrum. That premise being, that for some reason they get special value in the calculation because they aren't born yet.

Around the edges, I'm not sure what to say. Cruelty is dead center, certainly. And there is a sort of genuine and committed callousness that's practically cruelty -- I don't know because I don't care, doesn't matter to me if I hurt someone. And there's every degree of indifference from there down to perhaps blameless lack of knowledge. Even the judgment of whether you "should have known better" will vary a bit, maybe sometimes a lot. For instance, a lot of white folks are pretty stupid about race, but if you get out in the world or see the news much at all, you don't have much excuse for that ignorance.

So parents are somewhere in here, right?

Most people don't think having children is wrong because they don't think having a child hurts anyone. In fact, that's pretty clear from the exceptions, I'd think: if you worry that your family can't support a child, or that you may be incapable of taking care of one, you may think it would be wrong to have one, or others may think that about you, and similarly if your community or your country is poor, or in the middle of a civil war, etc., then it might be common to think that having a child is not in itself wrong, but wrong given the circumstances.

I think those sorts of judgments might even be pretty common: that wonderful couple is having a child, hurray; that awful couple is having a child, I feel sorry for that kid; and so on.

Take just an average couple, let's say decent people, and with the resources to raise a child; as far as they're concerned, and the people that know them, there is nothing in their circumstances that would make having a child wrong. No guarantees -- maybe both parents will die in a car crash and the children will be miserably orphaned. Since that's not the sort of thing anyone can foresee, no one would blame them for having children even if that's what lies in the future. That's very far out on the rim from callous indifference, and way past "you should have known". No one knows the future.

I mean, if people are going to say, "We shouldn't have kids" or "They shouldn't have kids", they're going to want something specific, something concrete to support such a claim. Poverty, illness, civil war, "you're a whore and your husband's a drunk" -- something specific.

So what do you have in a typical case like this? What do you know that they don't?

You have somehow narrowed a lot of arguments I've made into a lifeguard that is woken up. A clever trick, but it's like summing up someone's whole life story in a one liner joke. — schopenhauer1

That's totally unfair. You've not been 'talked over'. No-one's cut you off mid proposition and @khaled has dissected your posts practically sentence by sentence. Look back over the responses Khaled has given. Every single point you make has been addressed, and if you disagree with any of those points, or if you think any specific point has not been addressed you've had ample opportunity to just say so. If you can't argue your case it's either because your case is weak or because you're not expressing it well. It's just absinthian to dismiss all that as 'a clever trick'.

But, on the off-chance that I'm wrong, let's have the full justification. Quote the sections of @khaled's responses to you that you think have qualified his approach to be dismissed as 'a clever trick', so that we can all see the underhand deception he's trying to get away with, because to the rest of us it looks like an intelligent, dedicated, patient, unabusive, and diligent dissection of your argument.

I think those sorts of judgments might even be pretty common: that wonderful couple is having a child, hurray; that awful couple is having a child, I feel sorry for that kid; and so on. — Srap Tasmaner

This sounds far more 'real' as a situation than a lot of the metaphors and wild computations evoked on this thread, lifeguard included.

Another real-case moral dilemma related to the consequentialist arguments put forth on this thread, is about a mother discovering that her fetus is suffering from a grave genetic disease or disability. Should she abort or proceed with the pregnancy? I don't know the correct answer, if there's one. But that is a real life question, unlike "Should Adam and Eve procreate?"

Similarly, in India many female fetuses get aborted because having a son is seen as leading to better consequences for the child and the family. Is abortion based on the sex of the fetus a moral course of action? I don't think so, even if the families doing so would be absolutely certain that a girl would suffer more than a boy.

is about a mother discovering that her fetus is suffering from a grave genetic disease or disability. Should she abort or proceed with the pregnancy? — Olivier5

I would go as far as to say that if she is pro-choice, her not doing so is outright wrong.

Similarly, in India many female fetuses get aborted because having a son is seen as leading to better consequences for the child and the family. Is abortion based on the sex of the fetus a moral course of action? I don't think so — Olivier5

I don't mind it. If abortion is considered not harmful then why you do it shouldn't matter.

don't mind it. If abortion is considered not harmful then why you do it shouldn't matter. — khaled

Because that's treating human life as a commodity. If the market values boys more than girls, the supply of girls is reduced until such a time when the market will reassess the value of girls due to their rarity compared to boys.

I guess my problem with that (and other forms of eugenism) is that I disagree with the view that the 'desirability' of a human life should be assessed purely based on its likely market or social worth, or any other material consideration of future consequences.

I don't think the market or society is a good judge of future genetic fitness, or future happiness levels for that matter. If you allow parents the choice of their children eye and skin color, many will chose 'perfect kids' with fair skin and blue eyes. And yet if ever the earth ozone layer rips off, even a little, the added UV will kill these 'perfect people' with fair skin and blue eyes faster than the rest... High levels of melamine is a genetic strength yet put you at a social disadvantage.

Because I needed to keep reestablishing that you find it fine to harm people for the sake of other people in the game, to show that you need an extra premise to take having children off the spectrum. That premise being, that for some reason they get special value in the calculation because they aren't born yet. — khaled

I don't think so. This has a lot to do with the heuristic we are using to analyze the moral case. You are using a purely aggregate heuristic and I am using a dignity violation one. This is the same reason I don't like the "world exploder" argument for AN. Imagine you were to end all life painlessly (and harm) with a big red button. To press that button would, in aggregate prevent the most harm, let's say. But what is it about this argument that doesn't sit right? Something to do with things like rights and consent. They are alive, they have interests, they have ideas, and feelings, and dignity. It's of course, not all about preventing harm at all costs. It is more about how one treats the people being affected.

So as far as how dignity is applied in the two cases- not born and already born:
Once born, there is an inevitable utilitarian element because there are already interests of people that will be violated. There is already someone who has an interest not to die. This utilitarian element takes the form of balancing harms with each other to look out for each other's interests.

So with this in mind, the drowning boy has an interest to not die. The lifeguard has an interest to keep sleeping. So "dignity" in this case is not just purely surveying harm above anything else. In the world of already born, the interests of the people involved are a complex, relation of balancing. To protect people's interests we have certain duties to each other.

However, in the case of the child not yet born, indeed, there is no person who exists for which there are interests of things like "not dying" needs to be protected. This person is not in the "room" to have anyone look out for his interests and he look out for there's. However, in this case, there is a perfect opportunity to not cause harm to that person who will exist, and that opportunity can be taken. Not only that, but you are not only preventing harm, you are preventing that person from having to be in a situation of being compromised like the people that already exist. Here is a case where no "one" exists to experience ALL the harms of existence. Indeed, anything beyond this would be violating this for some other consideration, like preventing aggregate harm. It would never escape the fact that this person would thus be used, because there was no interests beforehand for which there needed any amelioration to take place for this person. It is purely for a reason outside of the person in question where people already born are a balance between all parties.

I guess my problem with that (and other forms of eugenism) is that I disagree with the view that the 'desirability' of a human life should be assessed purely based on its likely market or social worth, or any other material consideration of future consequences. — Olivier5

Well, I think I disagree with you on most things, but as far as arguments like @khaled that use aggregated harm as a basis, this indeed does become the case. People are "used" for their market value, purely, and without any reason as there is no person prior to their existence to have mitigating harms to reduce. Rather, the people already born do have interests of to ameliorate and reduce harm for each other. One is a case of being completely used, one is a case of relative use once already born for each other's mutual interests that the people born presumably have by being humans surviving in the world.

Take just an average couple, let's say decent people, and with the resources to raise a child; as far as they're concerned, and the people that know them, there is nothing in their circumstances that would make having a child wrong. No guarantees -- maybe both parents will die in a car crash and the children will be miserably orphaned. Since that's not the sort of thing anyone can foresee, no one would blame them for having children even if that's what lies in the future. That's very far out on the rim from callous indifference, and way past "you should have known". No one knows the future.

I mean, if people are going to say, "We shouldn't have kids" or "They shouldn't have kids", they're going to want something specific, something concrete to support such a claim. Poverty, illness, civil war, "you're a whore and your husband's a drunk" -- something specific.

So what do you have in a typical case like this? What do you know that they don't? — Srap Tasmaner

There's a lot of stuff already discussed in this thread, so anything I say now is liable to be taken as the sum of all arguments I have made.. So keeping that in mind, let me get you a "piece" of the philosophy..

The person being born is like being "kidnapped" into a game that you either must keep playing or kill yourself. It indeed is the "only game in town", but does that justify putting someone in the game?

Also, here is a case where you could have prevented ALL harm to a future individual. Why would it be good to NOT prevent ALL harm when one could have? Why would you make a decision that will enable the conditions for ALL harm for someone else? On top of the axioms there, there is another axiom of not using people because clearly any answer you give seems to be unjustified.. YOU want to see something play out. SOCIETY wants to see something play out. etc.etc.

I'm familiar with the, let's face it, abstract argument. I know the analogies.

But you want to tell typical folks considering having a child that they ought not, that to do so would be wrong. What will you say?

Won't they promise to do everything they can to protect their child from harm until they're able to protect themselves? Do they have to provide you an absolute guarantee that the child will never suffer so much as a skinned knee or an afternoon's boredom or a broken heart?

If that's your approach, I don't think you'll be taken seriously. Are you actually interested in convincing anyone not to have children?

This Be The Verse
BY PHILIP LARKIN

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.

Rather, the people already born do have interests of to ameliorate and reduce harm for each other. — schopenhauer1

Among those interests figures the desire to perpetuate and transmit something, a culture, a way of life, a heritage, to leave something behind, rather than fade quietly into the night.

Among those interests figures the desire to perpetuate and transmit something, a culture, a way of life, a heritage, to leave something behind, rather than fade quietly into the night. — Olivier5

But then you are contradicting yourself as far as using people. Look at my argument above regarding that in the case of the future child (as opposed to people who already exist and actually have interests). It is never for the sake of the child, and all harm will befall it, putting it into a game it could not ask for.

I don't think so. This has a lot to do with the heuristic we are using to analyze the moral case. You are using a purely aggregate heuristic and I am using a dignity violation one. — schopenhauer1

Not the way I see it. You admitted that waking up the lifeguard is a violation of dignity right? Yet you are fine with doing so.

You seem to be using an aggregate heuristic for people that exist, and a "violation of dignity" heuristic for people that don't. As in, once you exist, it's fine for your dignity to be violated left and right if it is to prevent sufficiently greater suffering. But before you exist, the initial violation is for some reason a tier above the others and is completely taboo.

To press that button would, in aggregate prevent the most harm — schopenhauer1

Not in the way I define it. Harming someone is simply doing to them something they don't want done to them. Most people don't want to die.

It would never escape the fact that this person would thus be used, because there was no interests beforehand for which there needed any amelioration to take place for this person. — schopenhauer1

Neither were there any for the lifeguard. The lifeguard didn't have an interest in saving anyone before you woke him up. But you didn't care because there was a boy drowning.

Yet you refuse to apply the same logic in the case of birth. The "unborn person" (you know what I mean) has no interests, but when I say "But I don't care because there are people in the room" you bring up that the child is not born yet, which is supposed to matter for some reason.

It is purely for a reason outside of the person in question where people already born are a balance between all parties. — schopenhauer1

False. There was no balancing between parties for the lifeguard. You favored one party (the drowning boy) completely over the other (the lifeguard). You used the lifeguard for a reason purely outside of himself. There is no getting around that.

But you refuse to apply the same logic for having children. Which I think is fine, but you need to make it explicit that you consider the initial violation for some reason much more grave than all the others. Because that is a premise you require for your argument. You need it to matter whether or not the person whose dignity is being violated exists yet. Because that is the only difference between the lifeguard situation and birth. Unless you can show some other difference.

Not the way I see it. You admitted that waking up the lifeguard is a violation of dignity right? Yet you are fine with doing so.

You seem to be using an aggregate heuristic for people that exist, and a "violation of dignity" heuristic for people that don't. As in, once you exist, it's fine for your dignity to be violated left and right if it is to prevent sufficiently greater suffering. But before you exist, the initial violation is for some reason a tier above the others and is completely taboo. — khaled

Answered that here:

Once born, there is an inevitable utilitarian element because there are already interests of people that will be violated. There is already someone who has an interest not to die. This utilitarian element takes the form of balancing harms with each other to look out for each other's interests.

So with this in mind, the drowning boy has an interest to not die. The lifeguard has an interest to keep sleeping. So "dignity" in this case is not just purely surveying harm above anything else. In the world of already born, the interests of the people involved are a complex, relation of balancing. To protect people's interests we have certain duties to each other. — schopenhauer1

Also here:

Indeed, anything beyond this would be violating this for some other consideration, like preventing aggregate harm. It would never escape the fact that this person would thus be used, because there was no interests beforehand for which there needed any amelioration to take place for this person. It is purely for a reason outside of the person in question where people already born are a balance between all parties. — schopenhauer1

Not in the way I define it. Harming someone is simply doing to them something they don't want done to them. Most people don't want to die. — khaled

Okay, but this is an example of aggregate above dignity of people already existing.

Yet you refuse to apply the same logic in the case of birth. The "unborn person" (you know what I mean) has no interests, but when I say "But I don't care because there are people in the room" you bring up that the child is not born yet, which is supposed to matter for some reason. — khaled

For the reasons I highlighted above, but will put here again to reemphasize:
So with this in mind, the drowning boy has an interest to not die. The lifeguard has an interest to keep sleeping. So "dignity" in this case is not just purely surveying harm above anything else. In the world of already born, the interests of the people involved are a complex, relation of balancing. To protect people's interests we have certain duties to each other.[/quote]

Also here:

Indeed, anything beyond this would be violating this for some other consideration, like preventing aggregate harm. It would never escape the fact that this person would thus be used, because there was no interests beforehand for which there needed any amelioration to take place for this person. It is purely for a reason outside of the person in question where people already born are a balance between all parties. — schopenhauer1

False. There was no balancing between parties for the lifeguard. You favored one party (the drowning boy) completely over the other (the lifeguard). You used the lifeguard for a reason purely outside of himself. There is no getting around that. — khaled

False. I balanced the harm done to the lifeguard against the harm done to the child. The life guard being "in the room" has interests that can be balanced against others now. There is no one "in the room" whose interests are balanced or needs to ameliorate or be ameliorated.

But you refuse to apply the same logic for having children. Which I think is fine, but you need to make it explicit that you consider the initial violation for some reason much more grave than all the others. Because that is a premise you require for your argument. You need it to matter whether or not the person whose dignity is being violated exists yet. Because that is the only difference between the lifeguard situation and birth. Unless you can show some other difference. — khaled

I believe I have again here:

Indeed, anything beyond this would be violating this for some other consideration, like preventing aggregate harm. It would never escape the fact that this person would thus be used, because there was no interests beforehand for which there needed any amelioration to take place for this person. It is purely for a reason outside of the person in question where people already born are a balance between all parties. — schopenhauer1

And probably better stated here:

Well, I think I disagree with you on most things, but as far as arguments like khaled that use aggregated harm as a basis, this indeed does become the case. People are "used" for their market value, purely, and without any reason as there is no person prior to their existence to have mitigating harms to reduce. Rather, the people already born do have interests of to ameliorate and reduce harm for each other. One is a case of being completely used, one is a case of relative use once already born for each other's mutual interests that the people born presumably have by being humans surviving in the world. — schopenhauer1

False. I balanced the harm done to the lifeguard against the harm done to the child — schopenhauer1

But you refuse to balance the harm done to the child vs the harm done to the people in the room. Why? Because the child isn’t born yet? I don’t see that as an important difference. And I can’t detect any other difference in your responses. And if that’s the only difference you go by then I think we won’t get anywhere. I don’t think it matters but you do.

I don’t have a problem with using people for the sake of other people. I have a problem with using people for “causes” like “for the country” which are abstractions that cannot suffer, so shouldn’t be considered when talking about morals.

But you also clearly don’t have a problem with using people for the sake of other people, or else you would not have woken up the lifeguard. It’s not the case that having children is “using someone” and waking up the lifeguard is not. They’re both cases of using someone for something outside themselves. So your problem cannot be with that. Your problem is with using someone that doesn’t exist yet for a purpose outside themselves. But again, I don’t care if the person to be used is here now or not.

Because the child isn’t born yet? I don’t see that as an important difference. — khaled

In not drawing a sharp distinction there, you join both the pro-life movement and @schopenhauer1, who are comfortable extending concepts like "rights" and "dignity" to persons who not only don't exist but may never exist.

Your problem is with using someone that doesn’t exist yet for a purpose outside themselves. But again, I don’t care if the person to be used is here now or not. — khaled

Because the people alive already have an interest. You are now introducing an interest (and ALL harms for a person) in order to resolve problems for people in the room. The people in the room already HAVE interests and are already harmed) so the balancing of interests in a society takes place.